


The Wood-Wraith

by Sinick



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26115211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinick/pseuds/Sinick
Summary: A poem in theann-thennathmode.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Wood-Wraith

**Author's Note:**

> This is a real blast from the past. I wrote it when I was fifteen and a raving Tolkien freak: a chronic condition I contracted at age nine, and which to this day shows not the slightest sign of remission!
> 
> It was prompted by some critic’s declaration that Tolkien's _ann-thennath_ poetry form, used in the Beren and Lúthien poem from The Lord of the Rings, was “the most complex poetic metre devised”. Unfortunately all my belongings from that age are buried in geological layers of storage, so I have no way of verifying who made this almost-certainly rash claim. But needless to say, I looked on it as a _challenge_ … 
> 
> Mind you, it _is_ an absolute mongrel of a metre! Octaves, made by taking a nice ordinary Sicilian sestet, sawing it in half like a stage magician, then tacking after each half a fourth line made up of the damnedest jumble of feet outside a hippogriff:  
> Iambic tetrameter A  
> Iambic tetrameter B  
> Iambic tetrameter A  
> Iamb, Amphibrach, Dactyl C (last syllable always -ing, except last verse, always -less)  
> Iambic tetrameter B  
> Iambic tetrameter A  
> Iambic tetrameter B  
> Iamb, Amphibrach, Dactyl C (last syllable always -ing, except last verse, always -less)
> 
> Because this was years before Mosaic was even a gleam in NCSA’s eye, I mailed the poem to the English Tolkien Society, and they very kindly published it. Since it’s long out of print by now, I figure the statute of limitations has well and truly passed, and I can inflict it on AO3.

* * *

_A hermit dwelt, in days of yore,  
Within a forest, black as coal,  
For threescore years, and nevermore  
He saw a mortal. Scrabbling  
For meagre meals in drift and hole,  
While hair and beard grew long and hoar,  
At last he felt his dying soul  
Departing from him. Babbling,_

_He told the forest that he would  
\- If given immortality -  
Ward off intruders while it stood.  
His last breath left him, bubbling.  
And then, from aged mortality,  
The Wraith arose to guard the wood  
With callous, cruel fatality,  
The lives of travellers troubling._

_Long years beyond, at close of day,  
Three mortals to the woods drew nigh.  
Pursued by foes, they would not stay  
For sake of old wives’ mumbling.  
They passed the borders, running by;  
Tore down the boughs that barred their way.  
The injured wood’s indignant sigh  
The Wraith stirred with its grumbling._

_“Fulfill thy bargain!” came its call,  
“Despoilers come!” The forest’s cry  
Demanded blood, “Destroy them all!”  
Rage rushed through branches, rumbling.  
The Wraith lord vowed, “Then they will die!”  
He promised the intruders’ fall,  
“They flee in vain; their throats will dry,  
Their minds in madness crumbling.”_

_The Wraith approached them, looked upon  
Them while they spoke of forest lore.  
With eldritch fog he drove them on  
In senseless terror yammering.  
“They’ll taint the woodhalls nevermore!”  
He watched them stumbling on and on;  
They ran until they could no more,  
Their desperate heartbeats hammering._

_But what was infinitely worse  
Than weariness or deadly fear,  
They all were racked with raging thirst;  
They heard a distant bubbling.  
“A spring!” they cried, “One must be here!”  
Their ears bewitched by spectral curse,  
They staggered onward, far and near,  
And then collapsed and grovelling_

_Exhaustedly upon the ground,  
They slept at last and never knew,  
It was the Wraith’s dark home they found.  
They tossed in nightmares shivering.  
The Wraith at length drew closer to  
His wood-wove home in hollow round.  
He thought, “I will be rid of you!”  
With silent hatred quivering,_

_He gazed upon them, cursed their sleep  
For desecrating darkling den,  
Then glided forth, his prey to meet;  
Their eyes blinked open, glistening.  
“All doomed to die! All craven Men!”  
He fled them then on unseen feet,  
And left them wakened, once again,  
In forest nightshade listening._

_He saw them leave the grotto black,  
They meant to never come again.  
The Wraith considered turning back;  
Their wake he shadowed, following.  
He trailed them, drifting long, and then:  
A thought that stopped him in his track!  
Remembering, once, he was of men,  
He moved on slowly, sorrowing._

_The life that he had left behind!  
The rushing hours, the fleeting years,  
Thoughts locked away long in his mind  
Behind his eyes were quavering.  
Forgotten memories, joys and fears,  
Seared his cold heart; for these, his kind,  
New pity tortured him with tears.  
His death resolve was wavering._

_“They shall be free!” the spectre cried,  
Not wishing to torment them more,  
He sped his pace and reached their side,  
Appearing to them, shimmering,  
A firefly floating on before,  
He lit their way to the outside,  
Until at last they could be sure  
They saw bright waters glimmering._

_Through woven boughs to open sun  
They ran, rejoicing to be free,  
All pleased to leave, save only one,  
Who stood by wood verge listening.  
“To you who saved us all,” cried he,  
“We owe our lives for what you’ve done!”  
The Wraith beneath a writhen tree  
Appeared in marsh glow glistening._

_Said he, “Now flee my dark domain!  
Begone and let no Man return!”  
For in the woods he must remain,  
Though years fly swiftly scattering.  
To gloaming gloom the Wraith must turn,  
And, wrung with long despair and pain,  
In solitude his fires burn:  
His warm heart hopeless shattering._

_“Why didst thou not our bargain keep,”  
The forest asked, “and kill the Men?  
And why dost thou now sigh and weep?”  
He gazed on black woods morrowless.  
“I will not kill for thee again.  
I pity Men, and long for sleep.”  
“Then thou shalt die!” “No, **live** again!”  
The Wraith departed, sorrowless._

* * *


End file.
